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Converting psychotherapy to psychoanalysis is relatively commonplace in today's psychoanalytic practice. There are still, however, a number of unresolved questions related to such a procedure. For instance, does the very fact of converting make the subsequent psychoanalysis more difficult or even impossible? If such a procedure takes place, should the patient be transferred to another therapist for the analysis? What are the essentials of psychotherapy and of psychoanalysis that have to be taken into account in such a conversion? For training purposes should conversion from psychotherapy, especially with the same therapist, be allowed for the required supervisory cases?
Many of these questions can be traced to Freud's papers on technique (1911-1915), particularly the following statement: “Lengthy preliminary discussions, … previous treatment by another method and also previous acquaintance between the doctor and the patient … result in the patient's meeting the doctor with a transference attitude which is already established and which the doctor must first slowly uncover instead of having the opportunity to observe the growth and development of the transference from the outset. In this way the patient gains a temporary start upon us which we do not willingly grant him in the treatment” (1913, p. 125).
This passage can be read not as an absolute admonition, but as